Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Originals

Klaus got a call from his enemy and fellow vampire Marcel. Marcel told Klaus that Cammie needed him. He went over and after a dig or two about Marcel (he found out last episode that there was something between Cammie and Marcel), he began trying to help her deal with the reality about her uncle. The witches weren't removing the spell on the priest so it was over.

She was trying to shock him -- at the temples -- to break the spell.

Klaus told her she was about to kill him.

She finally gave up. By the way, one of Marcel's minions is present helping.

When she still wasn't ready to say goodbye, Klaus ripped into the priest's chest and massaged his heart to keep him alive a little bit longer.

And Klaus knew that Hayley needed him during this, he put her off on the phone.

Cammie can't say goodbye and, as her uncle's dying, she asks Klaus to give him some of his blood -- this will turn her uncle into a vampire, she doesn't care.

Klaus does. The priest dies. That appears to kill the spell. Then he comes back as a vampire.

Let's go over to Hayley, Elijah's at the werewolves camp. (Elijah is Klaus' brother. Hayley is pregnant with Klaus' child -- the first offspring of a vampire and a werewolf.)

There's an attack on the camp, a man drives up on a motorcycle with a bomb.

Hayley is enraged and zooms off in her car. She's convinced it was Marcel. She calls Elijah who didn't know she'd left. She told him to stay with the camp and protect people.

But there are more bombs and they go off.

Hayley finds out where Marcel is and goes to confront him.

He tells her it wasn't him and fingers mortals.

Back to Klaus and Cammie.

He's leaving to go help Hayley but Cammie begs him to stay with her.

He does.

The priest becomes a vampire.

He can't believe Cammie did this but then understands.

He asks Klaus to leave.

He and Cammie have their goodbyes and the priest is going to kill himself.

Klaus ends up with the witch Davina who tells him that it may look like the spell is broken, but it's not. What was broken by the death was the spell that kept the priest in that one room.

Back at the church, the priest hears the voice of another witch and stops killing himself. He leaves the room and tries to kill Cammie.

He almost does but Klaus arrives and kills the priest.

And that's pretty much the episode except that some important piece of jewelry was stolen from the priest by Marcel's minion and then given to Marcel who says he's only keeping it until Cammie's strong enough to protect it.

(Also one of the werewolves killed a female after confessing that he was part of the bombings. Now he's using the bombing to try to become leader.)

Tuesday, April 22, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, campaigning
continues, some Iraqi politicians turn to unconventional campaign aids,
others are targeted, what are the conditions for being the President of
Iraq (because those are conditions for being prime minister), Nouri
continues to terrorize the civilians of Anbar, Daniel Ellsberg loves to
play like he's brave (while showing no bravery at all in the present
era), and much more.

Ammar al-Hakim is the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council. Alsumaria reports
that he declared today that Iraq has reached a turning point. He was
speaking in Babylon Province about the planned April 30th parliamentary
elections. He noted the coalition he'd joined with, the Citizens
Coalition, wanted to build university to continue the production of
knowledge and culture and to improve the quality of life for Iraqis in
the streets and in their homes. They are on the cusp, al-Hakeem
declared, and they can proceed to a fair state with confidence in the
judiciary, the government institutions and an equitable distribution of
the walth. Or they can remain with "red tape," with neglected cities,
with expanding violence and the continual shedding of blood.

The status quo is Nouri. That's what al-Hakim's speech is rejecting.

The status quo is Nouri and, whether it's out of personal elections hopes or not, politicians are rejecting him.

Sunday, Aswat al-Iraq quoted
the country's Shi'ite Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi declaring,
"Maliki does not regard himself responsible for the deterioration in the
country, but he shoulders the greatest responsibility." He also
criticized Nouri's campaign stops this month saying that Nouri's main
focus should be to "create a secured stability." Osama al-Nujaifi is
the Speaker of Parliament in Iraq and the head of the Mottahiddon list.
NINA quotes him declaring today:

Our former attitude of patience that we committed to,was motivated to
the preservation and unity of the nation and the people for fear of
plans of sectarians who carry out a well-known regional and
international schema . But today we will firmly repeal and strongly
deter the hand that turn the executive power to merely sentences of mass
executions of innocent citizens , as well as the hand that transform
army’s sacred tasks of defending people and nation’s boarders to a force
to crush the people , to dispersion and humiliate citizens , violate
the sanctity of the Iraqi family and imprison innocent women in
detention and rape them stressing the necessity to detain such a hand in
accordance with the will of the whole people,the will of the
constitution and the will of the right.

Three main forces are thus left competing within the Shiite political
arena: Maliki’s State of Law Coalition, the Sadrist current and the
Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), run by Ammar al-Hakim. These
forces follow quite opposed ideological and political agendas and are
themselves riddled with internal rivalries and disagreements. Since
Muqtada al-Sadr’s decision to withdraw from politics in February,
debates have been ongoing as to the future of his movement. While some
argue that Sadr’s abrupt move put an end to Sadrism, others believe that
it is only a tactic for the popular Shiite leader to reposition himself
ahead of the polls, both on the national scene and among his
supporters. Lending credibility to the latter hypothesis, Sadr has
remained politically active in spite of his announcement and is still
the sharpest critic of Maliki, whom Sadr has called both a dictator and a
tyrant. Sadr has also dissociated himself from other figures within his
movement allegedly involved in cases of political and financial
corruption.[. . .]The ISCI-dominated Citizen Coalition,
which unites 18 other parties, ranked second in the 2013 provincial
elections and today seeks to regain the standing it lost after its
electoral failure in 2010. The list comprises a number of influential
candidates, including Ahmed al-Chalabi. It primarily focuses its program
on state reform, and has preferred a more moderate and conciliatory
outlook in order to appeal to broader sectors of the Shiite population.
It presents itself as a reliable successor to Maliki, but one that will
not repeat the latter’s political mistakes. Contrary to Baghdad’s policy
of recentralization of national political power, the ISCI favors more
decentralization and hopes to garner greater support from Iran.

Benraad's take is that Nouri will win a third term (and that this will
be bad for Iraq). That is a prediction and many events on the ground
argue against Nouri winning or even currently being in the lead.

Daniel Ellsberg has never, ever, called out the current administration
for demanding that Nouri get a second term as prime minister despite
losing the 2010 elections to Ayad Allawi and Iraqiya.

Daniel Ellsberg has never called The Erbil Agreement -- which went
around the people of Iraq and gave Nouri a second term. Daniel doesn't
have that kind of guts.

He's a fat, overweight and declawed cat barely able to make it to the
litter box. And if that's harsh, so is Daniel's embarrassing refusal to
speak out for the Iraqi people and what they have endured since 2010.

In other words, he should probably just roll over on his back and enjoy the sun because he has nothing to left to share.

Dexter Filkins, infamous for his propaganda regarding the attack on Falluja in November 2004, has a long article at The New Yorker. Like Ellsberg, he can't bring himself to mention The Erbil Agreement. This excerpt covers that time period:

In parliamentary elections the previous March, Maliki’s Shiite
Islamist alliance, the State of Law, had suffered an embarrassing loss.
The greatest share of votes went to a secular, pro-Western coalition
called Iraqiya, led by Ayad Allawi, a persistent enemy of the Iranians.
“These were election results we could only have dreamed of,” a former
American diplomat told me. “The surge had worked. The war was winding
down. And, for the first time in the history of the Arab world, a
secular, Western-leaning alliance won a free and fair election.”But
even though Allawi’s group had won the most votes, it had not captured a
majority, leaving both him and Maliki scrambling for coalition
partners. And despite the gratifying election results, American
officials said, the Obama Administration concluded that backing Allawi
would be too difficult if he was opposed by Shiites and by their
supporters in Iran. “There was no way that the Shia were not going to
provide the next Prime Minister,” James Jeffrey, the American Ambassador
at the time, told me. “Iraq will not work if they don’t. Allawi was a
goner.”Shortly after the elections, an Iraqi judge, under
pressure from the Prime Minister, awarded Maliki the first chance to
form a government. The ruling directly contradicted the Iraqi
constitution, but American officials did not contest it. “The intent of
the constitution was clear, and we had the notes of the people who
drafted it,” [Emma] Sky, the civilian adviser, said. “The Americans had already
weighed in for Maliki.”But it was the meeting with Suleimani
that was ultimately decisive. According to American officials, he broke
the Iraqi deadlock by leaning on Sadr to support Maliki, in exchange for
control of several government ministries. Suleimani’s conditions for
the new government were sweeping. Maliki agreed to make Jalal Talabani,
the pro-Iranian Kurdish leader, the new President, and to neutralize the
Iraqi National Intelligence Service, which was backed by the C.I.A.
Most dramatic, he agreed to expel all American forces from the country
by the end of 2011.The U.S. obtained a transcript of the
meeting, and knew the exact terms of the agreement. Yet it decided not
to contest Iran’s interference. At a meeting of the National Security
Council a month later, the White House signed off on the new regime.
Officials who had spent much of the previous decade trying to secure
American interests in the country were outraged. “We lost four thousand
five hundred Americans only to let the Iranians dictate the outcome of
the war? To result in strategic defeat?” the former American diplomat
told me. “F**k that.” At least one U.S. diplomat in Baghdad resigned in
protest. And Ayad Allawi, the secular Iraqi leader who captured the most
votes, was deeply embittered. “I needed American support,” he told me
last summer. “But they wanted to leave, and they handed the country to
the Iranians. Iraq is a failed state now, an Iranian colony.”

Regarding the theft of the 2010 election? Some of us called it out in
real time. I, for example, don't give a damn about Iran or its
interference or 'interference.' I do, however, give a damn about free
and fair elections. The Iraqis risked so much to vote and the chose
Allawi. But the US government refused to back the democratic process.
This sent a message -- an alarming message in a country supposedly
moving towards democracy, or in the early stages of democracy, or gifted
with democracy or whatever damn lie the US government told that you
want to hold onto.

In the end, the White House didn't give a damn about democracy and this is 2010 so I'm talking about Barack.

I have no use for Daniel Ellsberg. I don't give a ___ that he did
something four-hundred-and-fifty years ago. I'm living in today. Dying
is taking place today. And if he wants to talk about Iraq, he better
find a spine. Otherwise, he needs to crawl back under his rock.

Not everyone's so afraid to note The Erbil Agreement. For
example, Anthony H. Cordesman and Sam Khazai pointed out earlier this
year in [PDF format warning] "Iraq in Crisis:"US officials applauded the 2010 Erbil agreement, and said they were hopeful that such cooperative
arrangement would provide a political breakthrough among Iraq’s leadership, and allow them to
address the country’s problems. They pointed to the influence the US had in pushing for the
outcome, including the adoption of an American suggestion that Allawi head a new, “National
Council for Security Policy”.

Vice
President Biden made numerous calls to senior Iraqi leaders over the
past several months and U.S. officials directly participated in
top-level negotiating sessions that lasted until just moments before
the Iraqi parliament finally convened to approve a new power-sharing
government Thursday, a senior Obama administration official said
Friday.

It was the April 2010 national election and its tortured aftermath
that sewed the seeds of today’s crisis in Iraq. Beforehand, U.S. state
and military officials had prepared for any scenario, including the
possibility that Maliki might refuse to leave office for another Shiite
Islamist candidate. No one imagined that the secular Iraqiya list,
backed by Sunni Arabs, would win the largest number of seats in
parliament. Suddenly the Sunnis’ candidate, secular Shiite Ayad Allawi,
was poised to be prime minister. But Maliki refused and dug in. And it is here where America found its standing wounded. Anxious
about midterm elections in November and worried about the status of U.S.
forces slated to be drawn down to 50,000 by August, the White House
decided to pick winners. According to multiple officials in Baghdad at
time, Vice President Joseph Biden and then-Ambassador Chris Hill decided
in July 2010 to support Maliki for prime minister, but Maliki had to
bring the Sunnis and Allawi onboard. Hill and his staff then made
America’s support for Maliki clear in meetings with Iraqi political
figures. The stalemate would drag on for months, and in the end both the
United States and its arch-foe Iran proved would take credit for forming
the government. But Washington would be damaged in the process. It
would be forever linked with endorsing Maliki. One U.S. Embassy official
I spoke with just months before the government was formed privately
expressed regret at how the Americans had played kingmaker.

Four years ago and Americans don't want to own up to what the White
House did? That action set in motion everything that followed -- as
surely Bully Boy Bush's illegal invasion destroyed Iraq.

And Myriam Benraad (World Politics Review) isn't the only one who fears a third term of Nouri al-Maliki will send Iraq into even rockier waters. NINA reports:The spokeswoman of the Watania (National Coalition), Maysoon
al-Damalochi confirmed that "if the current Prime, Minister Nuri
al-Maliki won a third term, the National Coalition would withdraw
entirely from the political process ." Damalochi said in an interview with the National Iraqi News Agency /
NINA / its details will be published tomorrow, " al-Maliki will not be
the head for the next government , because he will not get the full
support in this election , as happened in the previous two terms ."

Two things are worth noting here.

First, Nouri told AFP in early 2011 that he would not seek a third term.
This was when protests were rocking the region and leaders were facing
the threat of being toppled. Protests were taking place in Iraq as
well and there was an attempt to pass a law limiting a prime minister to
two terms (a law Nouri publicly stated he favored). Nouri was fearful
of losing his hold on power so he made public statements. Like so many
other promises from Nouri, they were meaningless. Today, no journalist
appears willing to ask Nouri what happened to his promise?

Second, Nouri may already be barred from a third term by the
Constitution. It prohibits the presidency and it may in fact prohibit
those holding the offices of prime minister and the presidency from
third terms.

We've gone over this before but let's go over it slowly.

How does one qualify for prime minister? Not the vote, how does the person whom the president will name qualify?

Article 77 of the Iraqi Constitution explains that:The conditions for assuming the post of the Prime Minister shall be
the same as those for the President of the Republic, provided that he
has a college degree or its equivalent and is over thirty-five years of
age.

So what are the conditions the presidency?

All agree this outline in Article 68:A nominee to the Presidency of the Republic must be:First: An Iraqi by birth, born to Iraqi parents.Second: Fully qualified and must be over forty years of age.Third: Of good reputation and political experience, known for his
integrity, uprightness, fairness, and loyalty to the homeland. Fourth: Free of any conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude.

That's the Constitution, everyone agrees.

So clearly the prime minister isn't limited to two terms?

Not so fast.

Article 72:First: The President of the Republic's term in office shall be
limited to four years. He may be re-elected for a second time only.

Hmm.

That sounds like a condition.

Because, for example, Jalal Talabani's been president for two terms now. If he wanted to go for a third one, he couldn't.

Why?

Because he's had two terms but what is the word for that?

Why? Because he's not qualified for the office as a result of having served two terms.

What does Article 77 say:

The conditions for assuming the post of the Prime Minister shall be
the same as those for the President of the Republic, provided that he
has a college degree or its equivalent and is over thirty-five years of
age.

One of the conditions to be President of the Republic is that you've not already served two terms in the office.

Article 77 says the same conditions apply to the office of Prime Minister.

Repeating, one of the conditions to be President of the Republic is that you've not already served two terms in the office.

Can Jalal have a third term as president? No. He fails one of the
conditions for the post because he's served two terms already.

If you read the Constitution, it seems rather clear -- it's not as though you're reading tea leaves.

Since the early 1970s, magicians and mystics
have become more popular and more professional in Iraq. They proclaim
themselves semi-religious, calling themselves terms like sayid,
sheikh or mullah, all of which denote that they are holy men in Arabic
and Kurdish. But of course, with additional, special powers. One
local sociologist believes that more locals were seeking help from the
magic men in Iraq because of widespread poverty and illiteracy as well
as a need to find some sort of hope, or spiritual alternative, after
military conflict and economic crisis. Yet their clientele come from
all levels of Iraqi society.

Meanwhile another of Karbala’s candidates, Mahmoud Obeid,
says he too is resorting to magic. He has run for office three times
already and he’s never been successful – so this time he is enlisting
supernatural aid.

Interestingly enough Obeid sought the help of a magician
in India. He says he travelled there and with the help of an Iraqi
living there, met with a well known magic man. “I paid the man around
US$4,000 so that he would do some rituals on my behalf,” Obeid explains.
“But when we left his house we were attacked by a gang of three other
men who stole all our money.”

Obeid, who lost about US$8,000 on his Indian trip, is now
using another method to try and secure his place in politics: He is also
distributing free meals to poor families in low-income areas. “This
time I really hope I win,” Obeid says.

Another Karbala candidate, Layla Flaih, says she only
decided to compete in these elections because of superstition. “One of
my colleagues reads coffee grounds and she advised me to run,” Flaih
told NIQASH. “She said I would win. So I submitted my information to
IHEC [the Independent High Electoral Commission], which runs the
elections even though it’s caused a lot of problems with my family. My
husband didn’t want me to run and he has threatened to divorce me.”

Still on campaign news, NINA reports the
home of Shiekh Saeed Hammoud Derwish was blown up in Ramadi. He's
running for Parliament with the Unity of Iraq Coalition. Parliamentary
elections are supposed to take April 30th. Already, it's been announced
Iraqi refugees in Syria will not be allowed to vote -- as well as
Iraqis in parts of Anbar. This targets Sunni voters as thug and prime
minister Nouri al-Maliki well knows. (Though the western press is so
very kind to Nouri and avoids noting this or even addressing the issue
of the refugees -- who will be voting in other countries.) Alsumaria reports
a grenade attack on a Mahmudiya (south of Baghdad) rally of Ahmed
Chalabi supporters which left 1 child dead. And the violence comes
eight days before elections are supposed to be held. NINA reports Ahmed Chalabi was present during the attack but was not harmed.

Eariler today, AP noted that a voting center in Daqouq Village was attacked late last night and
10 guards killed. Is AP leaving out something? They quote the deputy
police chief Tothan Abdul-Rahman Youssef stating that the assailants had
stated "they were there to carry out a search." They stated that to
the people they killed, guards in Kirkuk Province.

Kirkuk knows all about searches and all about who's allowed. Kirkuk has
their own forces, they have Nouri's forces and they have the Peshmerge.
In good times, that's all they have. In bad times, they have much
more including the military.

So if a group of men showed and stated they were there to conduct a
search and the guards initially believed it, isn't it likely that the
assailants were wearing some form of uniform?

Likely and indeed true. Belfast Telegraph reports,
"The gunmen were disguised in military uniforms and told the guards at
the polling station that they were there to do a search."

Of course they did. They had to. Guards in Kirkuk Province know what
someone who says they're conducting a "search" should look like. So to
pull that claim off, you'd have to be dressed for the part.

And many conducting violence have dressed for the part. This has been going on so long that we were making jokes here in
2006 that the greatest 'terrorist' in Iraq must be a seamstress since
all these uniforms were being used by fakes.

Dropping back to December 14th:Hey, remember how men in police uniforms or military uniforms commit
kidnappings and murders in Iraq? And how outlets like AFP always rush
in to insist that these weren't security forces? Despite the long
record of abuse at the Ministry of the Interior?Iraq Times reports
that the security committee of Basra's Provincial Council announced
today that 11 people had been arrested for kidnapping, extortion and
armed robbery.The 11 accused?1's a police officer (lieutenant colonel) the others are security
forces working for the Ministry of the Interior or intelligence agency. They are accused of robbing homes and businesses -- sometimes in uniform
-- and of going to homes and carrying out kidnappings while in uniforms
and pretending they have arrest warrants.I'm searching in vain for Reuters, AP or AFP picking up on this story.They're damn happy to counter eye witness testimony of police and
soldiers carrying out crimes by running with 'Police sources say these
were al Qaeda wearing fake uniforms . . .'You would assume having pimped the line over and over, they'd be curious about what the Basra Provincial Council announced.

No, they weren't.

Many times, the uniforms worn in an attack are the uniforms the assailants wear every day.

We'll probably go into more of that in the snapshot and the recent press
insisting of 'they were militants in stolen uniforms' which bit the
press in the ass.

In the meantime, Alsumaria reports that the Wasit Provincial Council is publicly calling out Nouri's forces for arbitrary arrests in the province.

Again, elections are supposed to be held in 8 days.

EuroNews observes, "For a second day running a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks across Iraq have left a trail of dead and wounded."

Does "other attacks" include Nouri's War Crimes?

They did continue today as he continued having the residential neighborhoods of Falluja bombed. National Iraqi News Agency reports he killed 5 civilians today -- "including a woman and a child" -- and that ten more civilians were left injured. Anadolu Agency notes another round of bombings of Falluja housing neighborhoods left 6 civilians dead and five more injured.

Alsumaria reports
Hussain al-Shahristani (Deputy Prime Minister of Energy) declared today
that hs is concerned about the innocent blood spilled in Falluja. He
says that Falluja cannot be stormed because innocents would be killed.

Iraq has three recurring punchlines. The first is "Nouri al-Maliki" and
can be plugged into any conversation. The second is "Jalal Talabani is
better and will be returning to Iraq soon." December 2012, Iraqi
President Jalal
Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December
17, 2012 following Jalal's argument with Iraq's prime minister and chief
thug Nouri al-Maliki (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot). Jalal was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20, 2012,
he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently. Since the
end of December, every few weeks comes a claim of improvement and a
claim that Jalal will return soon. We noted that tired joke circulated yesterday via the governor of Kirkuk. The third punchline? "Erbil and Baghdad are close to an agreement."

Background.

For background, you can drop back to the November 11, 2011 snapshot when ExxonMobil and the KRG's deal was upsetting Nouri. That was November 11, 2011. In the long space between then and now?
Nouri's whined and whimpered like a helpless puppy, whimpered for the US government to
force ExxonMobil to stop doing business with the KRG. July 19, 2012, when
Chevron followed ExxonMobil's lead, Nouri was declaring that the US
government was going to side with him on cancelling the ExxonMobil deal
with the Kurdistan Regional Government, refer to that day's snapshot.

3. Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the
equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq
without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and
implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq
benefit Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an
equitable manner.

Nouri had all but one year of his first term to get through an oil and
gas law. Then Barack got Nouri a second term and he still couldn't get
through an oil and gas law.

Most recently, Nouri's tantrums have revolved around a pipeline by which Kurds will supply Turkey.

Seven years and the failure of leadership hangs on Nouri.

Nouri's been attempting to use the 2014 budget as a means to blackmail
the Kurdistan Regional Government over the oil issue since he failed to
enact any oil and gas law. We noted this blackmail in the February 21st snapshot:

Meanwhile Isabel Coles and Jane Bair (Reuters) report
that, despite claimes from Hussain al-Shahristani (Iraq's Deputy Prime
Minister for Energy) earlier this week, the Kurds have not reached any
agreement with Baghdad regarding exporting oil. KRG spokesperson Safeen
Dizayee is quoted stating, "Absolutely we have not reached any
agreement to export oil via SOMO. The dialogue and discussions are
still under way."Nouri's failures are many. He's attempting to coherce the Kurds on the oil by using the 2014 budget as a club.

February 24th, Press TV reported:Baghdad is withholding wages for
hundreds of thousands of Kurdish employees in an attempt to apparently
punish the semi-autonomous Kurdish region over its controversial oil
exports.“There is this mindset and now a continuation of this mindset whereby
the central government does not believe in the existence of Kurdistan
region. If we look back their opposition was contained to the parliament
and the government but now we see that their opposition is directly
towards the income of the people, which is the wages,” said Kurdish MP
Umed Khoshnaw from the Kurdistan Democratic Party.Last week, Iraq's Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Roj Nuri Shawais
called on Kurdish ministers in the Iraqi cabinet to resign if Baghdad
refused to solve the problem.

A lot of oil is at stake, a lot of money. UPI notes
the KRG released figures today stating the KRG "Ministry of Natural
Resources created gross revenue of around $9.7 billion." In February,
he was offering them 7% of the national budget if they export 400,000
barrels of oil a day. The 2014 budget? Yes, that's not an error.
Nouri's government still doesn't have a 2014 budget. It's April 2014
and they still don't have a budget. Nouri's blackmail hasn't worked.
Nor has Hussain al-Shahristani repeated bleating that a deal was near. Rudaw reports al-Shahristani has started another wave of dubious claims:In
an interview with Sky News Arabia, Iraq's deputy prime minister for
energy affairs, Hussein Shahristani, said that the autonomous Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) has given preliminary approval for Kurdish oil
exports through Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO). He claimed that Erbil had said in a statement that the exports
would be within the framework of Iraqi regulations, and that they had
not begun yet due to technical reasons. Shahirstani said that Baghdad
was waiting for Erbil to commit to that decision.However, there has been no indication from Erbil that such an accord has been agreed.

Earlier this week, Rudaw reported,
"Kurdistan Regional Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said Sunday that
negotiations with Baghdad to resolve energy and budget issues have made
no progress, and warned that Erbil's patience has limits." Ali Unal (Daily Sabah) reports:

According to oil expert Shwan Zulal from London-based Carduchi
Consulting, more delays means it is more likely to see an independent
crude export from the KRG. "Kurdish crude is accumulating and Baghdad is
playing politics with the KRG's budget, not sending the right amounts
of funds and so on," said Zulal. "The case for independent crude export
to decrease reliance on Baghdad for paying the bills is becoming ever
stronger and the more delays we see, the more likely that we see an
independent crude export from the KRG. Nevertheless, the caveat will be
U.S. support for the export, which has not been forthcoming."On the other hand, the expert believes a deal with Irbil and Baghdad is
not likely in the coming days due to the Iraqi elections which will take
place in May. "The deal with Baghdad does not look very promising,
especially because the Iraqi elections are under way and the wrangling
over the formation of the new Iraqi government will ensue in the coming
days and months after the elections," said Zulal.